11 



we appreciate the importance of the subject and .g^ive these popular 

 articles the necessary attention. We can not expect the public to 

 appreciate the desirability of accurate information on this subject if 

 those who pose as authorities are content to give out inaccurate, 

 undigested, poorly worded articles in answer to queries. The agri- 

 cultural and daily press of America is worthy the best we can give it, 

 and in proportion as we meet that demand will we be successful in 

 extending the influence of the work in which we are interested. 



REPORTS. 



Aside from newspaper articles, this form of publication has been 

 the first emplo^'ed in ecomoraic entomology. The earliest report is 

 that by Dr. Thaddeus William Harris, of Massachusetts, whose classic 

 writings form the basis of all subsequent work in this branch of natu- 

 ral history. There is no necessity for the speaker describing or prais- 

 ing this work, since his hearers are all familiar with it, and it suffices 

 to call attention to the fact that Dr. Harris's work is really a practical 

 systematic account of the more important species known at that time. 



The admirable series of reports prepared by Dr. Asa Fitch, ento- 

 mologist of the New York State Agricultural Society, and practically 

 State entomologist of New York, are equall}" well known and contain 

 a mass of information with which every worker in this branch must 

 familiarize himself if he would succeed. The arrangement of the 

 reports by Dr. Fitch is very dMerent from that obtaining in Dr. 

 . Harris's treatise and consists in a sj^stematic grouping of the insects 

 under important food plants. Dr. Fitch evidently believed in making 

 his writings accessible to those who were not entomologists and who 

 had no special interest in the subject. His reports form the beginning 

 of a series which in reality was continued by Dr. Lintner, though in 

 different form, the latter's reports being composed very- largel}^ of 

 detailed accounts of species which had come prominently to notice 

 during the period the report covered. These individual accounts are 

 almost invariably grouped systematically and are in many respects 

 models in their thorough, lucid, concise treatment of injurious species. 



The series of reports and other entomological publications b}^ the 

 Federal Government was begun by Townend Glover in 1854 and has 

 continued, with a few breaks, in one form or another to the present 

 day. The work of Glover was seriously hampered and his reports, 

 while-containing a mass of valuable information, were far from what 

 he would have made them had conditions been more favorable. It 

 will be observed, however, that he evidently planned his work with the 

 intention of ultimately reaching the desired end, no less than that of 

 giving popular economic accounts of all of the more important groups 

 of insects. For example, his report for 1867 is concerned largel}" 



